The present invention relates to computer managed communication networks such as the World Wide Web (Web) and, particularly, to the tracking of the successes and failures in the transmission of documents from network server accessed resource locations on the network to the requesting user operated client computer stations on the network.
The 1990""s decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies which have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the Internet or Web related distribution of documents, media and files. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels, and the Web or Internet, which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility, reached xe2x80x9ccritical massxe2x80x9d and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, businesses and consumers have direct access to all matter of documents and computer files. This rapid expansion has brought hundreds of millions of Web users at hundreds of millions of Web stations, i.e. client computer stations on the Web. In addition, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which had been the documentation language of the Internet or Web for years, offered direct links between Web pages. This even further exploded the use of the Internet or Web.
Web documents are provided from a Web distribution site or resource location usually made up of one or more network or Web server computers which access the document from a resource database in response to a user request sent over the Web, usually through a Web browser on the user""s receiving client computer station. Web distribution sites or resource locations usually serve large institutions such as corporations, universities, retail stores or governmental agencies. These distribution sites may also provide to smaller businesses or organizations support for and distribution of individual Web pages created, owned and hosted by the individual small businesses and organizations. The network server computers which control the document and file distribution over the Web or Internet (terms are used interchangeably), include, in addition to servers which are at the resource locations, the Web servers of the Web service providers, through which the receiving client computer stations are connected into the Web, as well as servers at the other end which may also be servers managed by Web service providers that in turn connect the resource accessing servers into the Web. Thus, the path from the requesting client station to the server which accesses the distribution site or resource location could be through tens of thousands of possible paths with each path involving multiple servers.
Accordingly, tracking the success or failure of and the quality of communications between requesting client station computers and servers, particularly servers for accessing resource locations, is so circuitous and complex that most of the conventional xe2x80x9chandshakingxe2x80x9d routines are ineffective for these purposes. For conventional xe2x80x9chandshakingxe2x80x9d to be effective, there has to be some manner of predetermination as to which client sites or stations will be communicating with which servers.
With the Web, where there could be up to millions of xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d through the server system accessing a particular resource distribution location, this, of course, is an impossibility. In the earlier more tranquil days on the Web or Internet, it was not unusual for a user at one university to telephone a resource distribution location manager at another university or a government agency to report or inquire about communication difficulties with the resource location or with documents received from the location. This is also inadequate for the tracking of communications in the present Web environment.
The present invention provides a solution to the problem of tracking the success or failure of and the quality of communications between requesting client station computers and servers, particularly servers for accessing resource locations for the present complex and circuitous environment. Conventional means are provided for requesting the transmission of data components from one of said resource locations to one of said client stations. There are also means associated with the client station requesting the transmission of data components for tracking characteristics of said transmission in combination with means for sending said tracked characteristics to at least one network server on the path of said transmission. In the complex Web environment, while the resource location server does not know where its thousand of xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d are coming from, each requesting client station of those thousands does know the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or address of the server. Thus, the properties and characteristics of the transmission from the resource location are tracked at the requesting client station. Then, after a request and resulting transmission, or, in the case of a failed transmission, after the first successful transmission after the failed transmission, the requesting client location sends tracked data to the server relative to the failed transmission, as well as any data pertinent to the successful transmission. This invention is applicable to transmitted Web documents or pages, as well as to transmitted files in network file systems where the resource location server accesses files from am appropriate database.
Some typical characteristics which may be tracked are the number or count of failed transmissions, the Web address of the resource of the failed transmission and the lapse of time between the request and a failure message. In the case of completed transmissions, it will be the lapse of time between the request and the receipt of the requested data that is tracked. The resource location servers have to, of course, be set up to receive and analyze the tracked data to thereby correct or improve the transmissions. While the present illustrations are concentrated on the resource location servers, it will be understood that intermediate servers in the path between the requesting client-users and the resource location could also benefit from the receipt of this tracked transmission data, e.g. the providers of the Web service and connection.
The present invention may be conveniently implemented in the browser serving the client station, which, in addition to having the means for requesting the transmission of data components, would also include the means for tracking characteristics of said transmission, and the means for sending said tracked characteristics to at least one network server on the path of said transmission.